Tag: police brutality

Cops Shoot and Kill Mentally Ill Father of 3 for Holding a Broomstick

Since August 9, the family of Luis Manuel Garcia has been demanding answers from police as to why they shot and killed their mentally ill family member. This week, body camera footage was released which provided them with some of those answers — but the footage does not justify the use of deadly force against him — leaving them with even more questions.

“He was an innocent person who had a hard time in his life and didn’t give the police a reason to shoot him or kill him,” said Christian Garcia, Luis’ nephew.

She’s right too, on the day he was killed, Garcia had committed no crime. According to Sgt. Matthew Nunley of the Tustin Police Department, they received a call about a man “acting suspiciously” which does not happen to be a crime.

When police arrived at the Saddleback Mobilodge, three officers responded to a bush, in which Garcia was hiding. He was clearly in a state of mental illness but instead of receiving help he needed, he received deadly force.

“A male subject popped out of the bushes at them, holding an object,” Nunley told ABC 7 news after the shooting. “An officer-involved shooting occurred.”

That “object” appeared to be a broomstick and at no time did Garcia ever attempt to swing it or attack officers in any capacity. Instead, he appeared to be frightened and seemingly hiding behind the stick as he tried to run away. He would not make it.

As Garcia stepped out of the bushes, one officer tasered him before another fired two rounds at him, killing him.

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U.S. Supreme Court Concurs: Trouble Understanding Cops is ‘Resistance,’ Justifies Excessive Force

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to overturn a lower court ruling that justifies the use of excessive force by police on people who don’t understand police orders.

Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute and the Supreme Court Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law had asked that Oklahoma police be held responsible for brutalizing an African-American man who, despite complying with police orders during an arrest, was subjected to excessive force and brutality, including being thrown to the ground, tasered, and placed in a chokehold that rendered him unconscious and required his hospitalization for three days.

The petition in Edwards v. Harmon argued that Jeriel Edwards was not only deprived of his Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force but also his right to have a jury decide, based on video of his arrest, whether the officers’ actions were clearly unreasonable.

Affiliate attorneys Erin Glenn Busby, Lisa R. Eskow, and Michael F. Sturley of the University of Texas School of Law Supreme Court Clinic, and Andrea and Wyatt Worden of The Worden Law Firm assisted in the defense of Edwards’ Fourth Amendment rights.

“If you ask police what Americans should do to stay alive during encounters with law enforcement, they will tell you to comply, cooperate, obey, not resist, not argue, not make threatening gestures or statements, avoid sudden movements, and submit to a search of their person and belongings,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People.

“The problem is what to do when compliance is not enough. How can you maintain the illusion of freedom when daily, Americans are being shot, stripped, searched, choked, beaten and tasered by police for little more than daring to frown, smile, question, challenge an order or merely exist?”

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Shocking Study Finds Over Half of Those Killed by Police Have Never Been Counted

Tragically, in America, the domestic security force we are forced to pay for, also known as police, kill more people than any other police force on the planet. The numbers that are released publicly are staggering, however, according to a new study, they are actually far worse.

The study, conducted by the University of Washington and published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, found that police killings in America have been undercounted by more than half over the past four decades.

Researchers at UW compared the government’s numbers from the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) with the open source work at nonprofit groups like Fatal Encounters, Mapping Police Violence, and The Counted. What they found was shocking — the government is not counting police killings nearly as close as private citizens are.

The study found that the NVSS data undercounted police killings by 55.5 percent between 1980 and 2018. Overall, according to the researchers, “the misclassification of police violence in NVSS data is extensive.”

According to an analysis of the study by the NY Times, the “findings reflect both the contentious role of medical examiners and coroners in obscuring the real extent of police violence, and the lack of centralized national data on an issue that has caused enormous upheaval. Private nonprofits and journalists have filled the gap by mining news reports and social media.”

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Disturbing Video Shows Cop Walk Up to Family, Shoot Their Happy Puppy as it Wagged His Tail

An utterly disturbing and outright infuriating video was released this week as part of a family’s lawsuit against the now-infamous Loveland police department. In the video, we see the cowardice of officer Matthew Grashorn on display as he shoots a 14-month old puppy in the face and body as it happily walked up to greet him.

The family is now suing after their complaints to the department fell on deaf ears and they were essentially ignored for over two years. The shooting took place on June 29, 2019 and the family has been seeking justice for their mixed boxer puppy “Herkimer” ever since.

On that fateful day, Wendy Love and Jay Hamm were running their firewood delivery company when they pulled over in a vacant parking lot to repair a box they use for the firewood. The owner of the building saw them on security cameras and thought they may be trying to use his dumpster, so he called 911 to have cops investigate.

When police asked the building owner if the family was near or had been near the dumpster, the business owner said, “no,” according to the lawsuit. No crimes had been committed yet the officer responded as if he had arrived to a hostage situation.

“It was an ambush, and Grashorn knew it. He didn’t care,” the suit says. “He suspected that they were poor and wanted to surprise them, to see if they were up to anything he might be able to get an arrest for.”

As Grashorn walked up to the family, he never announced himself but Herkimer, who, according to the suit is a happy dog who had never bitten anyone, trotted up to greet the officer. Unfortunately, however, Grashorn is a coward and instead of petting the dog, Grashorn shot it.

As Wendy approaches the officer crying in horror, Grashorn refuses to let her near her dog to help him.

During this, Hamm yelled at Grashorn, asking him why he had shot a “clearly friendly dog,” according to the suit. Grashorn responded that he had “no way of knowing” whether Herkimer was friendly, that he “wasn’t in the business to get bit” and he had no interest in “waiting to find out” if the dog was friendly.

In other words, he’s a coward who shoots first and asks questions later.

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Siege at Ruby Ridge: The Forgotten History of the ATF Shootout That Started a Militia Movement

The Siege at Ruby Ridge is often considered a pivotal date in American history. The shootout between Randy Weaver and his family and federal agents on August 21, 1992, is one that kicked off the Constitutional Militia Movement and left America with a deep distrust of its leadership – in particular then-President George H.W. Bush and eventual President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno.

The short version is this: Randy Weaver and his wife Vicki moved with their four kids to the Idaho Panhandle, near the Canadian border, to escape what they thought was an increasingly corrupt world. The Weavers held racial separatist beliefs, but were not involved in any violent activity or rhetoric. They were peaceful Christians who simply wanted to be left alone.

Specifically for his beliefs, Randy Weaver was targeted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) in an entrapping “sting” operation designed to gain his cooperation as a snitch. When he refused to become a federal informant, he was charged with illegally selling firearms. Due to a miscommunication about his court date, the Marshal Service was brought in, who laid siege to his house and shot and killed his wife and 14-year-old son.

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Cop Opens Door to Porta-Potty Immediately Kills Unarmed Man with His Hands Up

Harrowing video has been released this week showing the execution of an unarmed man, sitting down inside of a portable toilet. Daverion Deauntre Kinard was gunned down by Fontana officer Johnny Tutiavake on Feb 13 — the day before his 29th birthday.

Illustrating the serious nature of the shooting is the fact that before the family even filed a lawsuit, the city offered up a million dollar payment for Kinard’s death. But after seeing the body camera footage and knowing that Kinard spent his last moments alive putting his hands up and surrendering to the police before he was executed, $1 million doesn’t even come close to the damages his family should seek.

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Police Dept Shamelessly Lists ‘Qualified Immunity’ as a ‘Unique Benefit’ in Job Posting

A police department in Manchester, New Hampshire is in the spotlight this week after issuing a call asking for new officers, and listing “qualified immunity” as one of the “unique benefits” and perks of employment.

“Located less than an hour from Boston, Manchester enjoys proximity to great schools and attractions, the beach, and the White Mountains. The department offers many opportunities to advance and additional unique benefits including qualified immunity. Click the link and apply now!” the post read.

Hours later, the department took down the post. “Earlier today Manchester Police published a recruitment post that referenced qualified immunity. This post was not the place for the mention of qualified immunity and was not appropriate. The post was removed and archived appropriately. As Chief of Police I take full responsibility for this post and the inappropriate mention of qualified immunity,” Chief Allen Aldenberg said in a department Facebook post.

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